Amelia County Virginia USGenWeb Archives Court.....Introduction, Court Order Books
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Reiley Kidd radcrk[at]comcast.net July 29, 2008, 12:13 am
Source: Introduction
Written: 2005
Introduction to the Amelia County Order Books
The Amelia County, Virginia Order Books contain the written record of the County
Court, which met monthly, and the Quarterly Court, which met four times a year.
These Court records contain a wealth of information about the period that they
cover. Most of these records have never been transcribed or abstracted
previously, and they represent an untapped resource for historians and
genealogists interested in early Amelia County inhabitants.
In 2002, the Amelia Historical Society acquired the microfilms of Amelia County
Order Books 17-33, and loaned them to Reiley Kidd so that he could begin
transcribing them. The Society has given us permission to post the
transcriptions on-line, as they are completed.
To date, three Order Books have been transcribed and indexed, and are posted on
this site for use.
How To Use These Transcriptions
Read this Introduction at least once, ideally BEFORE trying to use the
transcription. (It’s tempting to jump right to the Index, I know!)
The page citations in the text refer to the page number in the original
handwritten records. This is the page you’d refer to, should you want a
photocopy of the actual record itself.
Use the Search tool provided to search for any surname, and be sure to search
for all conceivable variant spellings, since the names have been transcribed
exactly as they were written, regardless of what I thought was intended. I did
not want to second-guess the county clerk, and alter what he had written.
What These Order Book Records Contain
These Court records contain a wealth of information about the period that they
cover. The majority of cases heard before the Gentlemen Justices dealt with
property disputes, and the resolution of debts and other obligations. Thus
people with much property and wealth are mentioned frequently in these records,
while those with little appear infrequently. However, the Order Books contain
many other types of records. These include the recording of deeds (usually
termed "indentures" in the Order Books), wills, commissions for the building of
bridges or roads, the binding out of orphans, charges of bastardy (typically
giving the name of the child and BOTH parents), and the granting of licenses to
run a retail store or an "ordinary" (an inn), or to preach or practice law in
the County. Transfers of land needed to be certified by the County Court, and
thus are recorded in these records, even though the deed itself, with a complete
description of the location and specifics of the property, was also recorded in
the County Deed Book for that year.
Many of the entries name the witnesses to the records, or provide other clues
that will help place the named individuals geographically within the county, and
will suggest possible relationships among neighboring families. Some of the
entries even provide familial relationships.
These records also give a glimpse into the economic life of the county. Among
their other responsibilities, the Gentlemen Justices set the rates charged by
the inns of the county, and also set the amount of the annual property tax. They
allocated annual pensions to Rev. War soldiers living in the county. They
stipulated the rate of reimbursement owed to witnesses, both per day and also
for distance traveled. And they set the annual salaries of the Sheriff and other
county employees, and reimbursed individuals for work on county projects, such
as the construction of bridges, repair of the courthouse or jail, and for
supplies required by the Court.
In this era, tobacco was a commonly used currency, and many debts were paid in
tobacco rather than money. Tobacco payments were generally one of two kinds,
“gross” (often abbreviated “Gro.”) and “net” (often “net inspected”). I believe
but am not certain that “gross tobacco” refers to harvested, cured tobacco that
has not been stripped of its stems, and “net tobacco” indicates cured tobacco
that has been stemmed.
Court awards were made either in tobacco or English currency (Pounds sterling,
shillings, and pence). English currency amounts have been abbreviated the way
the Court Clerk occasionally did: so “two pounds thirteen shillings and seven
pence” are abbreviated “£2.13.7”. The symbol for shillings is a “/”, and for
pence it is “d.” So “14/5d” is 14 shillings and 5 pence.
A shilling is 1/20 of a pound; a penny (pence) is 1/12 of a shilling.
Court costs were often written in the left margin, next to the entry for each
case. In most cases, the cost was between 70 and 170 lb. of tobacco. I did not
record these with each case.
How These Transcriptions Were Created
These transcription were created using microfilm reel 44, Amelia County Order
Books 17-20, from the Genealogical Society of Utah, which was obtained by the
Amelia County Historical Society, and loaned to me for transcription.
Where words were not legible or obscured, I left them blank (e.g., ________). In
some entries, the Court Clerk left one or more spaces empty, perhaps intending
to add the words later, but failing to do so; in those situations, I denoted
these as (blank).
Each new paragraph is a separate Cause from the prior paragraph.
Nearly all entries were transcribed as faithfully as possible, with little or no
abridgment. When major abridgments were made, the text appears within parentheses.
This transcription includes the page number(s) in the Order Book for each entry,
to facilitate locating specific entries in the original records. The Order Books
are on file and available to the public in the Amelia County Clerk of Circuit
Court office, which is located on Washington Street in Amelia, VA. Anyone
wishing to view the original records is welcome to visit this office during
regular business hours, Monday through Friday.
To speed the transcription, the following abbreviations were used:
P = Plaintiff, Ps = plaintiffs
D = Defendant, Ds = defendants
vs. = against
When uncertain about a particular name, I compared the entry in question with
the names listed in the Index, which begins each Order Book. Often this made
recognition of the name possible; occasionally the name was actually written or
spelled differently. When the latter happened, I’ve included the alternate
spelling in the text of the entry.
Names of persons and places were also crosschecked in Historical Notes on Amelia
County, Virginia, Kathleen H. Hadfield, editor (Amelia County Historical
Committee, (1982) when I was unsure of certain letters in the name. For
instance, some court clerks often did not cross the lower case “t”, most often
when it was a double-“t”, making it problematic to distinguish “t” from “l”. “F”
and “T” are quite similar in some clerks’ handwriting, as are “S” and “L”. And
the letters “n,” “m,” “u,” and “i” can also be difficult to distinguish,
particularly when any two of them are adjacent in a word.
Court clerks compounded the difficulty by spelling identical names several ways.
In this era, spelling was typically phonetic, and an individual’s given name or
surname could be (and often was) spelled more than one way. For instance, the
surname Dupuy was also written Dupey, Dupeey and Dupee. When I encountered these
variations, I transcribed them as they were written, rather than deciding,
perhaps erroneously, that both names referred to the same person. When I was
reasonably certain that the name was identical to another, similar name, I
included the other name in parentheses within the entry. And in every case
possible, within the index, I refer the reader to names I believe are used
interchangeably, such as Holt and Hoalt, Cumpton and Compton, Dupuy and Dupeey,
and many others.
Another source of confusion involves surnames that end in ‘s’. When referring to
more than one individual with the same surname, the clerk would often (but not
always) add a terminal ‘s’ to the surname. I transcribed the entries just as
they were written, so entries for certain surnames, such as Mill/Mills and
Will/Wills may or may not refer to the same family.
Finally, because of the particular difficulty in distinguishing between the
cursive capital letters ‘S’ and ‘L’ in some of the Court Clerk’s handwriting,
those researching surnames beginning with these two letters are advised to
peruse the Index in the alternate letter, looking for possible errors in
interpretation on my part.
I would like to thank Mrs. W.C. McConnaughey for her invaluable suggestions and
encouragement during the transcription of Amelia County Order Book 17, the first
one I transcribed. Her support made this initial venture much easier, and
improved the final version substantially. Thanks are also due to Mr. Joseph
Humphreys, 2002 President of the Amelia Historical Society, for initiating the
acquisition of microfilms of Amelia County Order Books 17-33, and to Nora
Barden, the society’s Treasurer at that time, for completing the process, so
that other Order Books can be transcribed in the future.
The work here is entirely my own. I’ve done the best I can, but make no
guarantee of perfection; I welcome others to examine individual records for
themselves, where my transcription is in question. And I will welcome comments,
suggestions, and corrections, so that future versions will be more accurate.
Reiley Kidd
Seattle, Washington
File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/amelia/court/introduc414gwl.txt
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